


home is the feel of your head on my chest, i'm drowning

by TigerCrossbow



Category: The Queen's Gambit (TV)
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Benny is so in love omfg, F/M, Implied/Referenced Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Kidnapping, Past Child Abuse, Rape Aftermath, Rape Recovery, Self-Hatred, Tactile
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-01-18
Updated: 2021-02-22
Packaged: 2021-03-13 15:00:17
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 4
Words: 6,958
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28655349
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TigerCrossbow/pseuds/TigerCrossbow
Summary: Beth Harmon goes missing from her hotel in Moscow the day after her final victory over Borgov. When she is found, Benny Watts hopes he can help her heal after her ordeal, but finds he has massively miscalculated.
Relationships: Beth Harmon & Jolene, Beth Harmon/Benny Watts
Comments: 69
Kudos: 97





	1. i wish i could see through your eyes

**Author's Note:**

> Hey! I, much like you I'm assuming, am fully obsessed and being consumed at all ties by TQG. As such, this will be a multi-chapter fic, primarily Beth/Benny, with ALL the angst and feels. This is going to be a heavy one folks, but we'll make it through! Tags will be added as we go, but please heed all content warnings, and let me know if you feel I've missed any.  
> As an additional note, this piece will be dealing with varying kinds of abuse, including sexual. The coping mechanisms displayed here are not necessarily healthy ones, nor would they necessarily work at all. I do have some personal experience with sexual abuse, but not to this extent, and I fully recognise I am in no way an authority and this fic should not be used as a model. Please look after yourselves.  
> It does work out in the end, I promise, and hopefully we can enjoy the ride!

The first time Benny hears about it is when she’s already been gone for three days. A reporter puts the dots together, the frantic communication and increased presence of KGB and CIA alike, in the chess hotel. The only reason for them to be there is Beth Harmon, and nobody seems to be able to locate her. All it takes is a little poking around, and then the news is everywhere. Beth Harmon, America’s Chess Sweetheart, was supposed to board a flight to Washington D.C, but never checked in. She had been playing chess in the park, returned to the hotel, and nobody had seen her since. She was missing, in Moscow, alone, and had been for three days. Benny spends the next two days on the phone, to anybody who will listen, insisting they let him help, come to Moscow, find Beth. When he gets nowhere he calls every chess player and publication he knows, calls in every favour, and manages to get on the television, where he lays out why the State Department needs him to be there. He’s in the back of an armoured sedan less than twenty minutes after the segment ends, on his way to the airport surrounded by pissed off suits and not even managing to be smug about it. All he feels is sick, sick, sick.

His visa is rushed through by the Russian government as a show of good faith, as they seem to be just as pissed off about the loss of Beth Harmon as the Americans. When his plane touches down in Moscow, she has been missing for nearly seven days. The KGB agent assigned to her is interrogated by both countries multiple times, and when his usefulness is used up, he is quietly disappeared and never heard from again. Benny, for his part, insists on speaking to the park players, getting their notes on the matches to try and discern Beth’s state of mind before she disappeared. Borgov and Luchenko have already tried, but nobody knows Beth Harmon like Benny Watts; nobody else sees things the way they do. She had been relaxed, and calm, and lacked the mania Benny categorised as her brain screaming out for pills or alcohol. She had made it back to the hotel, the staff and her CIA agent had confirmed, and ordered room service at around seven – scrambled eggs and toast for dinner, with a pot of tea – and at some point between then and the morning had managed to leave the hotel undetected and had failed to return. Benny stood on the front steps of the hotel, turning everything over in his mind with a cigarette in hand, the agents strategizing furiously, and eyeing him with clear disdain, disappointed by his lack of useful information. Benny did his best to ignore them, tilting his hat enough to block them out as he thought about the enigma that was Beth Harmon. Borgov stepped into his vision with a cigarette of his own, the two smoking in companionable silence. After Benny had lit a new cigarette, while Borgov was crushing the remnants of his beneath his shoe, the Russian cleared his throat and spoke quietly in English, filling Benny in on how the investigation was going, what the trains of thought were; he showed Benny where the pieces were, and why they’d been moved there. The assumption had been made that she left the hotel in an attempt to find somewhere covert to drink, somewhere she would perhaps not be recognised and outed. Benny had already started to shake his head when Borgov agreed with his unspoken thoughts – Beth was under the strongest influence of her life, and would have no need to dull her sensations, the sensation of wining. Not yet, at least. The people looking for her were focused on her alcoholism for direction and motivation, and could not be convinced they were wrong. Beth’s alcohol problem was an open secret, after all, and they stuck to what they understood about patterns of behaviour. They didn’t understand that Beth’s genius lay in her disruption of patterns, her ability to create brand new ones. Beth was never predictable, never boring, never so mundane. Benny reflected hollowly that he would be offended on her behalf if he wasn’t so goddamn scared for her.

The agents seemed to wrapping up their discussion now, and a few came over to usher the two chess players away. Benny stubbed out his half smoked cigarette and raised his head to follow the man back inside. Night was falling, and his eyes caught on a lit sign on the left of the street. He continued inside and then stopped sharply when his brain finished translating the word he’d seen in the lights. _AпТека._

Pharmacy.

Beth’s alcohol abuse was known, but her pills, the librium… she guarded that closely, and the only reason he even knew was because Cleo told him, after Paris. Beth Harmon, high on victory, coming out of her hotel in the middle of the night, looking to her left and right, trying to decide where to go. Her Russian was excellent, she would know what the sign was. The Beth Harmon he knew, she would head straight there, but he… he had never known Beth sober. Never known Beth in all her fire and glory and victory, stone-cold and unfettered by her addictions. That Beth, champion Beth, scourge of Russian chess, incandescently, beautifully sober Beth. What would she have done?

Benny turned back around, the CIA and KGB agents alike looking at him in consternation.

“Right. She turned right.”

*

The teams reorganised their search patterns, beating back the dusk with as many lights as they could find. It's one of the KGB agents who notices the scrap of white in an alleyway, and a CIA one who finds the hair. The Russians work their magic and find a drugged out witness who swears he saw two men carrying a bride into a car. It takes three more days to track down the car, and two more after that to track its owner back to an abandoned storm cellar. It took twelve days to find Beth, and by the time Benny is allowed into her hospital room he hasn't slept in nearly three.

He falls asleep in a too-small chair, with one hand on his knife and the other on Beth.


	2. these hands feel like sandpaper on my skin (not yours, though)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Beth gains consciousness, and Benny thinks he's self aware, but is mostly self-recriminating.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey y'all! Here's the next chapter! A little longer for you guys, and a little bit more of an in-depth look at Benny. I promise we're gonna get to be in Beth's head soon, and I hope you like it. A very small trigger warning for self-hatred, but it's gonna be a much bigger theme here shortly.

The first time Beth woke up, she blinked twice, and tried to raise her head. She promptly passed back out and didn’t move for another hour or so. The action was missed by all but a single CIA agent who happened to be looking at her. Benny didn’t even twitch.

The second time Beth woke, it was with much more warning from her machinery as she struggled to consciousness. She ripped herself from the hold of a nightmare and attempted to sit bolt upright, gasping for air. Something _moved_ in her chest and her gasp turned into a silent scream. She dropped back the few inches she had managed, the impact causing more pain. The monitors were screeching by that point, and she had just enough time to catch a glimpse of Benny’s face and the sound of running feet before she slipped away again. 

The medical team checked her over, and decided to give her more sedatives to allow more healing before she jarred herself like that again. Benny heard snippets of their conversation with the agents in the room, enough to understand that sudden movements could cause major damage. Sudden movements which, as the nurse with the best grasp of English had muttered sympathetically, are completely understandable given Beth’s ‘ordeal’. As Benny is neither Beth’s next of kin nor her legal representative, he is unaware of the details. The still present sick feeling warned him that he should probably enjoy the ignorance while he could, the visible evidence of Beth’s injuries only strengthening that feeling. 

Beth doesn’t actually, legally, have any next of kin, Benny had found out after he woke up in that room, still holding her hand. He didn’t understand how he hadn’t known that, how he’d missed it. He knew her mother had died, but hadn’t realised that, well. Beth was 20 years old, her adoptive father had disowned her, and her parents were dead. Every parent she’d ever known, and that was just-

Unfair.

A short phone call with Beth’s official legal representative, soon after her second attempt at consciousness, had soon cleared up any misconceptions about Beth not having any family, however. After what he understood to be a fairly one-sided phone call to the agent in charge, facilitated by the State Department, (and one which Benny studiously ignored, having decided to respect that foreboding feeling as long as possible), the agent was commanded to hand the phone over to ‘Mr. Watts’. He had taken it, expecting to hear a male voice, from what Beth had mentioned of her lawyer when she told Benny of arranging her mother’s funeral. (And why hadn’t he realised then? That if she had any other family, surely that awful task wouldn’t have fallen to her alone, plus a lawyer she didn’t know? How could he have been so–)

He had been, therefore, briefly thrown off to hear a distinctly feminine voice after his acknowledgement of the call. 

“Listen here, pirate boy, and listen good. I can’t be there with you, with _Beth,_ so you’re all the friendly face she’s got right now. D’you think you can handle that? Since you’re never smiling in those damn magazines she reads– ”

“I’m sorry, who the hell are you?”

“I’m Jolene, Beth’s damn sister, and you’re forgiven since I know she probably didn’t talk about me much before y’all had your little domestic. I can’t come to her in Russia, being that I’m so damn black and all, so you better deliver her straight to me as soon as she can travel. You hear?”

Her accent, so different from Beth’s, kicked a reflexive “yes ma’am” from some deeply buried part of Benny’s mind, one he hadn’t unearthed since…

Well.

“Good. Try not to be too much of a dick to my cracker, and keep me updated. Beth knows the number.”

It took Benny a few seconds after it became apparent she’d hung up to lower the phone from his ear, slightly shell-shocked. Apparently, Beth came by that commanding, if slightly abrasive, nature honestly. Benny noted that it didn’t seem to have the same _effect_ on him coming from somebody else, and then compartmentalised that thought hard, burying under chess strategy and previous games, under the detritus and white noise of his mind, refusing to look at it right now. Not in a hospital, not in Beth’s hospital room, and not when he had no goddamn idea if she was going to be okay, or even wake up.

It would seem, Benny thought semi-hysterically, that even unconscious Beth could read his mind, as at that very moment her monitors started beeping, and the medical team returned in a rush, and with great confusion. Her vitals seemed to suggest she was waking up, despite the recently administered sedative. Benny was shooed away from his chair and from Beth’s hand – to his great displeasure – but refused to leave the room, and everyone had more important things to do than make him. The medical team was watching Beth and her vitals, frantically taking notes and speaking rapid-fire Russian, while the American agents were preoccupied watching the medical team, one agent translating as much of the exchanges as he could out loud, while the others rested their hands on their sidearms and watched tensely. Benny pressed himself further back into the wall glancing frantically between what the medical team were doing and what that agent was saying, trying to keep abreast of what was happening to Beth. His view of her was almost entirely blocked, so he edged around the throng of doctors and nurses, trying to catch a glimpse of her face. He managed it, between the shoulders of two of the shorter nurses, just in time to see her eyelids flicker and snap open, darting erratically around the room. A doctor leaned into her field of vision, shining a small flashlight in her eyes and trying to calm her down, but she didn’t appear to see him. He touched her shoulder, and then her gaze snapped into focus on him, where he seemed to be attempting to soothe her in quiet Russian. Benny saw something spark in her eyes a moment before she started screaming. She clawed at the doctor’s face with her nails, drawing blood and pushing him away as she struggled to free herself from the blankets on her legs. The nurses pinned her down ad she screamed louder, thrashing, while the agents looked on, wanting to intervene but knowing the nurses had to stop her from hurting herself. 

Benny hadn’t noticed himself moving forwards until he came into Beth’s sightline near the foot of her bed, now unobstructed as the nurses held her limbs on either side. When their eyes met, she dragged in an awful, painful-sounding breath and changed from making animalistic sounds of fear and panic to saying his name over and over, surging forward with new strength. She only had time to say it twice before he was close enough to touch her legs, and only had to say it once more before he was pushing past the nurses to get closer. One of them released her arm and tried to block him, and Beth screamed louder, ripping the now less-restrained arm free, and shoving it cast and all past the nurse to grab onto the hem of his t-shirt and tug him towards her. Benny abandoned any niceties, throwing his weight around to get through the nurses to Beth. If she wanted him close, that’s where he’d be, and he would not allow himself to be prevented from reaching her.

Beth seemed to calm marginally only when Benny was so close he was practically climbing into bed with her; one knee up on the bed and hunched over her. She had stopped thrashing, and so the nurses released her. She used that opportunity to hook her other hand around Benny’s necklaces, the usually graceful fingers fumbling and twisting the delicate metal. She was lying partway on her side now, blankets twisted around her legs and face grey with pain. Now she was just mouthing his name through heavy panting breaths, and shaking. Benny didn’t know if it was pain or fatigue or adrenaline or fear causing the tremors to wrack her damaged body, but he knew it wasn’t good. He placed one of his hands over hers at his throat, and used to other to gently stroke her hair back from her face while hushing her gently. He was sure he was barely making sense, a stream of quiet platitudes and soothing sounds, but Beth was slowly untensing, her breathing steadily becoming more even and her machines ceasing their loud screeching. 

Benny stopped stroking her head to gently untwist her damaged hand from his t-shirt and lay it to rest by her side on the bed. She whimpered when he let go to return to touching her hair and he soothed her quietly, looking her in the eyes despite how desperately he wanted to check the room around them, see where everyone else was, to know if they were going to try to take him away from her again. He knew his tension from not knowing was making things more difficult for Beth, but something told him her control was tenuous enough to send her back into distress if he looked away. He stuck with the lesser problem, and willed her to do the same. It seemed to be working, as she carefully uncoiled herself on the bed and her features relaxed, her breathing coming less harshly. She maintained her death grip on his necklaces as she leaned further back onto the pillow, causing him to sway awkwardly closer, his other foot barely brushing the floor now, and the hand he had been using to cover hers now half-propping him up over her. He realised she was using him as a shield to the rest of the room, and smiled slightly. 

A small, spiteful part of his brain whispered about how stupid he must look to the rest of the room; hat and coat discarded across the bed by his chair, his stupid hair flopping over his eyes, struggling not to topple over onto Beth, and grinning at her like a _love-sick moron_ while she’s still in the throes of freaking the fuck out as some kind of trauma response to whatever the hell she’s been through for the last two weeks. Oh, yeah, and who exactly made sure she was alone and thus vulnerable to _kidnapping and assault_ Benny-boy? Gee–

Benny ruthlessly suppressed the whispering, since he had much more important things – like Beth – to worry about. Beth, who was smiling back at him, if a little dopily, with pupils blown wide. Benny figured that was fair, given the amount of sedatives in her system, and the substance that was most likely morphine that a nurse had just pushed into her IV line. Benny trailed off his murmured reassurances, and quietly watched Beth quietly watching him. As he watched, her blinks got longer and longer, until she stopped opening her eyes. The occasional movement assured him she was in fact only sleeping now, rather than fully comatose or unconscious. Benny moved to slip from the bed as one of the nurses shifted his old chair around the bed to his new position, and Beth’s hand on his necklaces tightened. She flickered her eyes halfway open and caught his eye.

“Stay?”

“Of course Beth. Always.”

Seemingly satisfied, she closed her eyes again. Benny waited a couple of minutes before attempting to pull her hand off his necklaces so he could sit in the chair the nurse had wedged as close up to the bed as she could. Beth’s eyebrows furrowed in displeasure, and Benny stopped moving. The nurse who had moved the chair – the same one who had said that Beth’s panic was “understandable” – tapped his shoulder. When he turned as much as Beth’s grip would allow, she smiled, and spoke to him in Russian. 

“I’m sorry, I don’t…”

The CIA translator piped up then, and Benny realised anew that the CIA agents in the room had all been privy to his entrapment against Beth, and how little he minded. A few of them were trying to stay professional and not smirk at him, but they were failing.

“She says you can lie down on the bed with her. On top of the covers, mind.”

At that, two of the agents broke, sniggering quietly. Benny tried heroically not to roll his eyes at them, and then nodded to the translator and the nurse before awkwardly maneuvering himself into lying next to Beth on the narrow hospital bed, not quite touching her. He glanced down at himself to check he was sufficiently on the bed, and when he looked back up, Beth had turned her head towards him, and there was suddenly only a few inches between their faces. Benny jerked his head back on reflex, to a round of more twittering from the agents, and a second, more stern-looking nurse shushed them harshly to avoid them waking Beth. She leant down to fuss with the IV line for a moment, and then she and the kind nurse swept from the room.

Benny settled back down and made a conscious decision to ignore the CIA assholes in the room. Beth asked him to stay, wanted him close, to see a familiar face when she woke, and Benny had already been informed by Jolene that that was to be his job until Beth was delivered safely to her care. He hoped Beth might be okay with the idea of him sticking around after that, with her, but he wasn’t sure. Jolene was probably all the help she’d need, but he hoped that, well, maybe she might want him to stay anyway. Even if she didn’t need him. But he’d meant it, what he’d said to her before. Benny would always be there for Beth. He was done dropping the ball, done hiding behind his hurt feelings and spite, he was just. Done. Done denying that, even though he tried to bury her under chess theory and distance, she was always on his mind. Done ignoring the fact that he loved her.

Look, Benny was a lot of things, okay? Most of them bad, he was aware. He was arrogant and egotistical, obsessive and rude. He sometimes went days without eating or sleeping because he was so caught up in chess games and bad memories that he didn’t notice the time passing. He had a gambling problem which he’d mostly whittled down to friendly betting on speed chess. He was emotionally unavailable, volatile, and he hated doing anything without thoroughly planning it all out in his head. He was a manipulative asshole with a handful of people who could stand him, mostly because of chess, and was often surrounded by chess groupies that hated him as much as they wanted to be him. He was dismissive of other people, used his clothing as armour, and had completely screwed up his relationship with Beth by being a total dick whenever he felt even the tiniest bit vulnerable.

So.

He knows who he is, is the point. He’s, he likes to think, a pretty self-aware guy. He’d realised he wanted Beth as soon as he played her for the first time. He’d realised he liked Beth as soon as she walked away from him in the courtyard before she’d soundly beaten him and taken his title. He’d realised he loved her while they were having sex for the first time (the only time, since he proceeded to purposefully sabotage it in fear of his own emotions). He’d realised that he wasn’t going to get over her when he’d called _Harry fucking Beltik _and told him to come to New York to help Beth, and dealt with the potent cocktail of relief, jealousy, and irritation when Beltik agreed without hesitation to drop everything and make it down there.__

____

____

He’d realised, when the news broke that she was missing, that he’d never been more vulnerable in his life, his queen, _his Beth,_ in check, and him sitting there with no pieces and no strategy. He’d realised, sitting on a plane after pulling every favour and every trick he knew to get himself back into a salvageable position on the damn board that he was done fighting it. He needed to be near Beth, however she’d have him. He hated that part of him was glad she had to rely on him here, glad for the chance to prove he could be reliable. It made him sick that it took Beth being hurt for him to pull his head out of his ass.

But he was here now, with his head on straight, and with Beth. He could fix what he ruined with his insecurities, he hoped, because Beth was alive and seemingly amenable to his company – as far as she could be consciously amenable to anything, right now. But, his presence seemed to have calmed her for the moment, so he was going to take that and run with it as far as she would let him. 

Next time she woke up, he would be there, like she asked, and she could start really getting better so they could get the hell out of this country and get her back home. Everything else would come later, but for now, Benny would just enjoy the fact that she was safe and here with him, and breathing, and not comatose. 

He kept his eyes on her face until he couldn’t keep them open any more, and fell asleep to the sounds of Beth’s steady breathing in his ears, and the smell of her in his nose. 

Despite the truly awful hospital bed, and the room full of judgemental CIA agents, it was one of the best sleeps of Benny’s life. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And there we have it folks! I thought I'd end on a slightly lighter note (lighter?? ish...) before we start getting into the Big Boi Trauma of the piece. All that angst will start big time next chapter, which I'm planning to have up in the next week, and then for one or two more after that before we start heading into major hurt/comfort territory. Thanks for reading, and for those of you who have commented and left kudos! I'm trying to make sure I answer all of your comments as well, and I'd love to hear what you think. Thanks guys!
> 
> -TigerCrossbow


	3. when your heart is an earthquake i'll guard your fault-lines

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Beth wakes up, and her injuries are revealed.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey y'all! Here's the next chapter - a tiny bit later than I wanted, but some stuff was going on in the real world so I rolled with it the best I could. Hope you enjoy, and thank you so much to everyone who has commented and left kudos!

Benny woke at Beth’s first movement, and opened his eyes in time to see hers move under her eyelids before she pried them open with a few hard blinks. They stared into each others’ eyes, close enough that their noses were nearly touching. Beth smiled and whispered his name and Benny returned her smile. She blinked a few more times, and then furrowed her brow in confusion, looking around the room.

“Where- where are we?”

Benny bit his lip, and answered carefully, feeling like he was skirting the edge of a catastrophe.

“In the hospital, Beth, in Moscow.” Watching her blink at him, he chanced another few words, reaching out to touch her shoulder gently. “You’re safe now.” The medical team filed in, with much less haste now that her machines weren’t screaming, but Beth barely seemed to notice, flicking her eyes to them before turning them back on Benny, reaching out to hold his forearm.

“But I was being good, I wasn’t- I shouldn’t be here. Borgov, I have my match with Borgov, I’m going to miss it!” Beth moved to get up from the bed, but stopped short with a grimace. “That doesn’t feel right, that’s not- Benny, I gotta get out of here, but something’s wrong, will you help me get up? I just need to stand then I can go and-”

“No, Beth! Lay down, please, just, stay there, hold on.” Benny pressed down gently with his hand on her shoulder until she lay down. Thankfully, she surrendered to his gentle pressure before the approaching nurses had to make an attempt.

“But Benny, my match-”

“You already played Borgov, Beth, over two weeks ago. You don’t need to go anywhere or do anything except stay right here and don’t _move_.”

Beth stopped trying to get up. “I played him already? But that’s not- I was just on the phone with you prepping for the match, what do you-” Beth froze. “Benny? How are you here? I was just talking to you, you were in New York, everybody was in New York, what are you- what are you doing here?” Her grip on his arm tightened as her stare intensified.

“I told you Beth, your match was two weeks ago. You- you went missing after, nobody knew where you were so I flew in to help, see if I could work out what you were up to, where you were. We found you a few days ago, brought you here. You don’t remember?”

Beth’s grip dropped with her head, as she fully lay back down. She worked her jaw, and Benny was horrified to see tears in her eyes.

“I lost?”

“What? Beth-”

“I did, didn’t I? That’s why I’m in here?” She looked like her world was ending, and Benny thought his heart might actually be tearing itself to shreds in his chest. “I lost, and I couldn’t handle it, so I took too much or drank too much, or both, and planted myself in this goddamn hospital instead of-”

“NO Beth! No, Jesus, no. You won! You kicked Borgov’s ass, and it was the most beautiful chess I’ve ever heard of, and then you played chess in the park, and ate eggs for dinner, and went for a walk and somebody _took you,_ and _hurt you,_ and this- this wasn’t _you,_ Beth, those fucking animals did this to you, but you’re okay now, you’re safe, and you’re the best there is, and now everybody else knows it too.” Benny once again found himself between Beth and the rest of the room, hovering over her as he clutched at her, needing her to understand, needing that awful look in her eyes to go away, to see the fierceness come back into them so he knew she really was okay, he wasn’t just praying to a God that never listened to him, wasn’t as useless as he feared he was. Beth stared back at him, lips slightly parted.

“I won?”

“Yeah, Beth. I wish I could have seen it.”

Beth broke into a smile, and Benny thought it looked like the sunrise.

“I’m the best there is.”

These tears- these were the best kind. And as he watched them fall, Benny’s heart didn’t feel shredded at all.

*

After Beth had calmed down some, the doctor in charge of her care approached the foot of the bed. A nurse – the sweet one, from yesterday, (God Benny should learn her name…) – stepped up behind him with a warm smile to Beth, and then Benny. She must be there to translate again. Sure enough, as the doctor spoke, she waited a few moments and then translated for them.

“We are all glad to see you awake, Miss Harmon. You gave us a bit of a scare yesterday, but you seem lucid, and I would like to go over your condition with you now, if you find this to be acceptable?” Beth agreed with a nod, clutching Benny even tighter and shifting closer to his side now that he’d moved to stop blocking the room. Even though listening to the nurse would be the best way to glean the coming information, Beth refused to take her eyes off the doctor as he spoke. The wary look in her eyes caused that awful feeling to rise in Benny again. _Edging around a catastrophe…_

The doctor glanced around the room and grimaced at all of the agents watching intently, before he spoke again.

“Miss Harmon, I would like to inform you that this information may be difficult for you to hear and that you might prefer… less of an audience. As this is concerning your personal medical information, you have a right to privacy.” Beth opened her mouth to answer, still looking wary, when one of the agents interrupted.

“For Miss Harmon’s security as a citizen of the United States of America, she will not be permitted to be alone with Russian nationals for the duration of this visit. This trumps her right to privacy, unfortunately, so at least two agents will be required to remain with her at all times.”

The doctor looked like he might protest when Beth piped up.

“If two of you are staying you might as well all stay; I doubt anything would stay in this room and I’d rather my medical information not be used as gossip. Let’s just get this over with.”

The doctor cleared his throat while eyeing Benny meaningfully.

“Benny _stays._ ” The words ripped from Beth’s mouth with such ferocity the doctor flinched, and Benny turned to meet her eyes, to reassure her he wasn’t going anywhere. Beth was still looking at the doctor though, and the viciousness in her expression surpassed any he had seen on her face before. Gone was the calm, commanding confidence of Beth’s face over a chessboard, and absent was the scathing contempt of her self-destruction. This expression was new, and Benny looked on in wonder, as the dragon in his head scrabbled to hoard it away with the rest of her, chessboards flying as it dove beneath to curl up around his greedily-guarded treasure. The doctor nodded his acquiescence and Beth’s face relaxed, the expression slipping away. For a moment, Benny missed it. Then, the dread he had been feeling for days welled up and smothered all his thoughts except for the one writhing through him: what happened to Beth? It looked like they were about to find out, and for a selfish second, Benny wished he could close his eyes and cover his ears until it was over. Then Beth shifted her grip from his forearm to his hand, and he was disgusted by his cowardice. Beth needed him. She had lived what he was about to be told, the least he could do was hold her through it, as long as she’d let him.

“Beginning from the top then. You are currently suffering from a fairly severe concussion, which may explain the amnesia you see to be experiencing, as well as–” Beth sat up again, a noise of distress ripping itself free. Benny flinched and turned back to her, looking for what could be wrong. She was already looking at him.

“Benny! Benny, play chess with me!”

“Wha– I’m not sure now is really the time, Beth–”

“I have a concussion and I’m missing time and memories, Benny, _play chess with me_!” Oh. _Oh_ , she wanted to make sure she could still– well, that was one thing Benny was good for at least! They played through one of the fastest games of speed chess Benny could recall, out loud, while the other occupants looked on in bafflement. By the end of the match, Beth was smiling, and Benny had forgotten his dread.

“See? The best there is.” Beth’s smile softened, just for him, and her eyes sparkled with joy. Benny could look at her like this all day. Unfortunately, Beth still needed to be told what had happened to her, and as they settled back down to listen, Benny felt the disquieted anticipation rise again.

“As I was saying, Miss Harmon. As well as your concussion, you have a fractured orbital socket and cheekbone. Three of your teeth were loosened, and the cut in your lip required stitches. You have some serious bruising around your neck, a torn muscle in your left shoulder, a broken wrist and two fingers on your right. Multiple ribs have been broken, with severe contusions to your abdomen. A slice on your back required seventeen stitches, and your left shoulder blade is cracked. In addition, your right leg has been broken in two places, and a ligament torn on that side. You also have a broken toe, and bruising across the majority of your body.” The doctor paused here, and Benny tried to process the wave of information. “Miss Harmon, there is one more thing, of a particularly _sensitive_ nature, and I want to confirm one more time that you would not like anyone to leave this room?” Beth shook her head and gripped him tighter, while he felt the blood drain from his face. The earlier levity had completely drained from the room, and Benny longed for it back. Beth’d been beaten to hell, and there was _more,_ he couldn’t– “Very well, then. Miss Harmon, it would appear that you have been sexually assaulted, multiple times.”

It took a few moments for the words to register. Benny felt like he was moving in slow motion as he turned his head away from the doctor to look at Beth. Beautiful, smart, fiery Beth, who’d been hurt like _that,_ and oh God Benny had been right, he didn’t want to know, he wished he could forget, _he couldn’t believe he thought he’d felt wary before, when he didn’t know yet and Beth oh Beth ohhBethBethbethbeth_ -

Then she met his eyes and his screaming internal dialogue didn’t matter anymore. The doctor offering shakily-translated platitudes didn’t matter anymore. Benny had thought his mind revolved around Beth before, but now, it was like the whole world disappeared and all he could see and hear and feel and smell was Beth, tunnel vision the likes of which he’d never experienced before, even at his most focussed, and he was utterly lost in her. Because all that mattered now was her, and how he could help her, and make sure she never ever looked at him or anything the way she looked now. He felt like he could see her soul crumbling behind her eyes and that was _unacceptable._ He moved to be between her and the world again, climbing on top of her as her hands started to shake, and cradled her face in his hands. He made sure his weight was off her body as much as possible as his thumbs swept across her cheekbones, the gentlest touch he was sure he had ever given in his life. She gripped the front of his shirt, staring at his chin. The tight grasp did nothing to prevent the tremors in her fingers, and she closed her eyes to his caresses as her bottom lip started to tremble too. The incoherent soothing was back, and Benny once again could do nothing but let his mouth take over and hope he didn’t stick his foot in it. The instinct to survey his surroundings was back, and with Beth’s eyes closed he succumbed to it this time, darting his eyes around the room. The agents in the room avoided his eyes, a few looking rather ill. Benny knew they were hardened professionals, but still. Shaking like this in his arms, with silent tears flowing, he didn’t think he’d ever seen Beth look younger, including the first time he met her when she was only champion in Kentucky, yet to face him in a match. Even then, the sharp focus in her eyes as she had cut through his Caro-Kann demonstration had matured her. Now she was vulnerable in the worst way, and so Benny would protect her until she was back to strength again. He could do this for her. He could. Protect her like he had failed to do because of his own petty pride, and like some of the agents in this very room had failed to do through negligence.

He was glad they wouldn’t meet his eyes. He needed to stay here with Beth, but he was so _angry_ he wasn’t sure he could stay planted if any of them looked back with defiance, or worse, with pity. Then he looked back at that wobbling lip, and knew he would have stayed. He checked the doctor and nurse next, who weren’t doing much other than watching them sadly. He jerked his head for them to leave; Beth had enough to deal with right now, and could ask questions later. The nurse nodded (he should really learn her name godammit), and tugged the doctor out with her, saying they would come back in the morning, and lowered the lights in the room, but didn’t turn them off entirely. Benny’s next glance was to the clock, and sure enough, it was nearly one in the morning. For security reasons, Beth’s room had no windows, so he hadn’t realised.

Now that he was aware of the time, fatigue was starting to set in. He was bemused to realise he had gone from stroking Beth’s cheekbones to petting her hair, but her tears showed no sign of stopping. That was okay. Well, no, it wasn’t, he fucking _hated_ to see her cry, but it was okay in that she didn’t have to be strong right now. She was here, and alive, and safe now, and Benny _had her_. She could take the time to process and grieve and hurt, and Benny would handle the rest. He rearranged them so they were lying on their sides on the bed, facing one another. Beth kept her eyes closed, but buried her face in his chest as soon as he stopped shifting them around, releasing her death grip on his shirt to wrap her good hand around his necklaces again. Benny wrapped himself around her, and watched the agents over her shoulder with baleful eyes, until they crowded around their little folding table in the corner and stopped watching them. Satisfied that they were as alone as they could be, Benny pressed a kiss to the top of Beth’s hair, and settled in for a long night of holding Beth close enough to stop her shaking apart.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And there we go. There's still some very hard conversations to get through, and a bit of various people being painfully insecure/obtuse, but we're getting there! Xx
> 
> Update 10/02: Hey guys! The irl shenanigans I mentioned earlier are taking a little longer to square away than I thought, but the next chapter will be up by the end of the week, and I’m expecting to go back to weekly updates after that. Thanks for your patience! Xx


	4. A Brief Explanation

Hey guys! Not an update yet, I’m sorry, but just a brief explanation of what’s been going on with the delayed chapter.

First, I have by no means abandoned this and am working in the chapter as fast as I can! 

Unfortunately, that’s not a whole lot right now. As mentioned in the previous chapter, life has been coming at me in a pretty rude way. I had just dug myself out from under a shitpile, when my long term partner broke up with me out of the blue. There’s no hard feelings or blame, nothing yikes happened, but I am understandably pretty wrecked right now. Getting in the headspace of someone as devoted and head over heels as Benny is being difficult, plus the chapter and it’s contents has been a pretty tough one to write as it explores more of what actually happened to Beth. 

Additionally, as mentioned in the very first author’s note, I have some experience with sexual abuse. Nothing like what is being depicted in this story, but enough that I didn’t have a good relationship with sex and intimacy for a while. My very recently ex-partner was a big part of how I could move through that, and move on from it to a place where I was comfortable and enthusiastic about those parts of myself and my life. My foundation and support system in terms of maintaining a healthy attitude to sex have therefore been understandably shaken but not, ultimately, damaged. 

I am absolutely dedicated to continuing this story, and in a timely fashion. I should have this next chapter out by the end of the week (for real this time, bar the universe deciding to kick me when I’m down AGAIN), but I wanted to let y’all know in more detail the situation. I really appreciate everybody’s comments and kudos, and can’t wait to see how you react to the rest of the story.

Thanks,  
TigerCrossbow xx

**Author's Note:**

> There we go! This fic is ongoing, and I'm hoping to have the next chapter up in a few days. Look after yourselves!
> 
> Until then,  
> TigerCrossbow xx


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